Lightness of Being
I realize I am only 3 days into my return to a {so not French} daily pace, but I swear this week has grown ferocious teeth and a pointy tail…because I collapse into bed…every night. Exhausted. Overwhelmed. Trying to figure out where my on ramp is. After all, I was only gone a week.
I suspect I was spoiled.
During our stay abroad, there was not even the faintest sense of urgency hanging in the air. Example? Lunch was always a leisurely two hours. No exceptions. And after lunch, the town just folded itself in for a quiet afternoon. What could be more splendid? No one was anxious to move on to the next thing. What would be the point? So, it was on us to take this new tempo for a test drive. And, well, it was rather remarkable.
However, since I am not ready for a one-woman revolution to change our American way of life, I've been ruminating on what "best practices" I could adopt from my trip…and, you know, live them here. What I've come up with so far is…
(1) Take deep breaths. I've been known to take a few on your average day. But since I've been home, my count has soared into the thousands. With every inhalation, I am forcing myself back to the present moment. I focus on what I am doing INSTEAD of what else still needs to be done. One thing at a time, one day at a time…
(2) Surrender multi-tasking. Slaloming back into life-here-as-I-know-it, I realize we chase our tails. Alot. We are silly for results. Which is fantastic until we diffuse our focus with too many objectives. My goal? Focus on one thing at a time with appreciation. When we take our time, we develop a finesse for doing things well. From here springs beauty. Quality. Grace.
(3) Keep perspective. Most of us aren't solving world peace. But by our frantic demeanor, you would think the weight of the world was upon us. It's not. We could all perhaps stop taking ourselves so seriosuly. When we get real about what we are able to do and keep our expectations manageable, we are capable of rendering impressive results.
This post is pretty much a letter to moi. Having seen a seamless and gorgeous way of life in practice with unrivaled results, I am an even-bigger believer that when we simplify, we spin gold. Simplicity over-delivers.
And that is truly the big picture.
